Category: Attention

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One at a Time: The Hidden Power of Singular Focus

By Gabrielle Penberthy

Running Away Balloon Meme | MULTITASKING: LISTENING TO MUSIC WHILE STUDYING; YOU; MULTITASKING: LISTENING TO MUSIC WHILE STUDYING; ME: YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO STUDY EFFICIENTLY; YOU | image tagged in memes,running away balloon | made w/ Imgflip meme maker

While studying, everyone has experienced the need to snap back others, listen to music, and browse Instagram. We laugh when we communicate with others, we groove to music, and we stay connected when we browse Instagram. We run the risk of drifting from our study goals when we engage in these activities while studying. It is all fun and games until we get a bad grade on that important test or the homework assignment that is half of the final grade. I understand how difficult it might be to resist temptation when your phone is so close. I find myself picking up my phone to put on music or snap others back. But when I do this, I find that I start singing along to the music, which diverts my attention from my studies. Why is this a task so hard to complete? Divided attention, or multitasking, is the term used to describe this. When this occurs, I typically end up with a low grade or find it difficult to respond to an important quiz question. This causes an excessive amount of worry and self-doubt.  

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Put down that Phone and Focus!

By Odessa Grove

Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, and iHeartRadio are all amazing apps created to provide people, from anywhere, music at any time. Music provides everyone with a sense of feeling all different kinds of moods and can be listened to for whatever occasion. Some people want to dance around their kitchen, while others just want to scream a breakup song in the privacy of their cars. Finally, what my friend and I like to do is carpool to karaoke. However, some people find themselves listening to music while they are studying. I know I am no saint when it comes to watching YouTube videos or streaming Hulu while I am studying for tests or writing a paper. I mean, it is impossible not to when my phone is right there. However, whatever I might be listening to while studying or writing a paper, I often find myself being very distracted and end up procrastinating on my assignment. I always stress about my grade, so I know I should focus on the task in hand. However, I always get stuck on what is happening on social media right now, or, depending on the song, I will just start to sing my heart out and not even care about my assignment anymore. Why, why is this a difficult task to do? Well, the answer is the result of divided attention, or more well-known name, multitasking. 

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Have A Large Load of Information to Remember? Here Are Some Tips

By Sophia Simonis

Do you often have trouble studying for exams? Does it seem like even though you put in countless hours studying that you can never remember what you need to when it comes time to sit down and actually take a test? You may be studying wrong.

THE LOAD THEORY OF ATTENTION

The load theory of attention explains how people can focus on a certain task while ignoring irrelevant stimuli. This theory includes two concepts, processing capacity and perceptual load. Processing capacity refers to the limited amount of information a person can focus on at one time. Your working memory can only handle so much at a time and still successfully carry out a task. Perceptual load refers to the amount of information a particular task involves. A high-load task, involving a large amount of information, will fill up your entire processing capacity. A low-load task, dealing with a small amount of information, will only take up a small portion of the processing capacity (1). In other words, a difficult task will require all of your attention to perform, while an easier task leaves room for distractions to take over your attention.

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Dual-Task Methodology

By KayeLynn Brown

As college students have you ever really thought of the most productive vs least productive ways to study and retain information? Trust me, we’re all in the same boat in one way or another. While adjusting to the college workload it can be stressful to find what works for you. What is important to note is trying to do several tasks at once is harmful to a student’s ability to learn and study information. If there’s one thing I would’ve liked to been told when I was an incoming freshman trying to learn all of this for myself – it would’ve been the greater amount or load of things you put on yourself and try to learn, will actually just hinder your ability to succeed. Dual-task methodology can help explain the reasoning behind this.

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Blind to Reality

By Kennedy Savage

You’re driving down the road windows down and music blasting, while looking out the window you notice the sunset and people going about their day. All of a sudden your focus shifts and you notice a car swerving into your lane, unable to break fast enough you rear end the car causing a traffic incident. This split second failure to notice fully visible, yet often times unexpected objects is and example of inattentional blindness.  

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Attn: Loading Too Much On? Here’s a Theory of How to Fix It

By Maya Estes

Do you ever feel like you are taking too much on? Responsibilities are piling up and you cannot for the life of you get on top of everything? You, my friend, are not the only one. At one point in time, everyone has been in your place; they have said ‘yes’ one too many times and now they have so many things on their plate that they are overwhelmed. It is not always saying yes though. Life is full of numerous distractions; it is amazing the world is still turning with the many ways you can avoid all of life’s responsibilities. There is never going to be a tried and true way of eliminating all these stressors, but there are some ways to help reduce them and focus on what is important.

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Is the Load Too Much to Bare?

By Sarah C. McSparin

You feel as though everything is piling up and you’ll never get it all done. Join the club! Your not alone; there are thousands of students and employees with a mountain of responsibilities that seem too overwhelming. Not to mention the countless distractions life throws at you, especially cell phones. You wish there was some formula for completing all the tasks your assigned. Unfortunately there is not but by gaining knowledge about your ability to pay attention you can learn some tips and tricks to help you focus your attention on the things you want while ignoring the things that are distracting.

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Take A Study Break, Why Don’t You?!

By Dymond Hunley 

What are you doing? In college studying for tests or maybe even finals. Let me Guess?! You’ve been cramming information for the last several hours. Let me guess again… You’re tired and ready to crash. Well let me be the one to tell you that you should not study for several hours constantly without taking a break. Time management is your best friend and procrastination is your worst enemy. When I started as a freshman that was one of my biggest flaws and sometimes still is.

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Attention!! Stress is Limiting Your Potential

By David Schultz

First days of college are exciting times, but college is an ever-changing world. However, there are two things that will always remain constant, stress and homework. Sadly, there is nothing you can do about the homework but there are things you can do to alleviate your stress. Each student suffers from some sort of stress and that stress strangles a student’s attention. Research has shown that ordinary chronic stress limits the flexibility of the student’s attention. Also stress temporarily reduces the connectivity of the attention regulating area of the prefrontal cortex. (1) Considering attention is one of the main processes that drive cognition, stress is going to be a huge issue for student’s grades. Attention is commonly referred to as a spotlight, and stress is shown to be like smoke, limiting the effectiveness of the spotlight. High stress could be like trying to use the spotlight during a soupy fog. But exams and tests are not the only issue that students face during stressful times. Being able to pay attention to the questions asked on exams are not the only effected area. But stress can affect the amount of information that a student can collect during lecture. It is common to see students bored by lectures or drifting off during reading assignments, we all have done it at least once. This is yet another why that attention is impaired by stress and there is data to support that. Research has shown that a person who is suffering from even acute stress can be imparted in attention allocation and distractibility during situations that involve information collection. (2) Stress can pull your ability to focus on the information in lecture and next thing you know you are in a daydream.

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